SUO: Re: Web-based ontology browsers
From: "Robert E. Kent" <rekent@ontologos.org>
> > (1) Does my diagram below accurately express the definition of
> infomorphism
> > as you described it in section 2 of your paper The Information Flow
> > Foundation for Conceptual Knowledge Organization?
> >
> > http://robustai.net/mentography/infoMorphism.gif
>
> Probably not. An infomorphism has four components: two classifications and
> two functions. As expressed by the KIF axioms, there are typing
constraints
> and a constraint called the fundamental property of infomorphisms.
>
> > (2) Will we not still need to *manually* develop the assertions for the
> > mappings f and g in my diagram?
>
> I do not think the diagram represents the infomorphism concept.
Forget about the diagram, do the two mappings you refer to as 'f' and 'g'
need to be manually entered ??
>In the IFF
> Foundation Ontology the axioms for infomorphisms are complete (not meant
> logically, but intuitively).
What do you mean by 'not meant logically, but intuitively' ?
> > (3) Are we expected to be able to input two consistent ontologies and
> > produce a third consistent ontology somehow by inputting these axioms to
> > some tool that exists today ?
>
> That was being discussed yesterday in a different thread
> [http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg06373.html].
I know. But I still would like to hear the answer to my question.
> > I am having troubles understanding the level of abstraction of your
> papers.
>
> It is fairly high -- after all, it is category theory (see
> [http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/categories.html]).
Category theory doesn't scare me per se (i have always suspected that the
diagrams I have been drawing for the past 20 years are really expressing the
same things that are expressed by category theory diagrams). But I think
that if IFF is supposed to be a method for growing ontologies, and if we
want it to become widely used, then the methods need to be accessible to
those of us who don't want to spend years digesting category theory. I
think we need IFF translated into natural language understanding. The
natural language in your paper was quite understandable, and even
inspirational ... yet when you got to the point of 'how to make it work' it
became inaccessible
Seth Russell